Listening to Winter Woods

 It’s been a weird November – this week felt like the first proper bit of Winter this side of the calendar year. With near-freezing temperatures, a clear day and a low breeze, I took myself out a couple of days ago for a bit of Winter parabolic dishing.

 I have been to Ebernoe Common a couple of times to get drone photos for the Sussex Wildlife Trust. It’s a long way from anywhere, nestled between cosy villages and the twisty lanes that connect them. This is in theory a perfect location for audio recording as traffic is a concept that has yet to reach these parts of the county. Here, the constant drum of humanity is reduced to only the tinnitus in your own ears. In theory, at least.

Parabolic microphones are odd contraptions. They look a bit like miniature radio telescopes, and they even work kind of the same way. When members of the public ask what on earth I could be doing with this weird white disk, I sometimes answer “Looking for aliens”. I jest, parabolic microphones are actually for listening to birds, which I think is much cooler anyway. Parabolic microphones use their large surface areas to reflect incoming waves towards a focal point where a microphone is placed. The effect is a bit like cupping your hand over an ear, it amplifies the sound coming from a specific direction. This is handy for recording birdsong, as it is really effective at singling out specific sounds from a distance. 

My parabolic dish

It could be easy to assume that winter would be a particularly poor time for trying to record birds, but that isn’t necessarily true. A handful of species, such as the European Robin, will sing all year round. And birdsong isn’t the only kind of audio that birds produce. You have contact calls, alarm calls, wing claps and the sorts to make up an unappreciated end-of-year encore. If the dawn chorus is classical music, then the winter tune is experimental jazz.

As soon as I got out of the Van, I was greeted by the days players. Tits, of course, chatting amongst themselves. Woodpeckers too, gently hammering against the almost leafless oaks. And then, this odd wittering chorus. To my ears, they sounded like a mature version of starling, having a similar quality, just a bit softer around the edges. If starlings were cheap supermarket red, then this was aged port. Being a bit of a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to wildlife, I wasn’t particularly sure what I was listening to. Finches, perhaps?

A short walk into the woods brought me to a clearing with powerlines running towards the horizon. With the 10am church bells ringing into the distance, I stopped to listen to what was around me. Magpies, with their football rattles, were watching from the sidelines. Doves cooed from the treetops. And there it was again, the wittering chorus. Intrigued, I followed the sound. 

Powerlines often cut in neat lines through woodlands. As it would be unwise for large tree limbs to accidentally fall onto this nationally important bit of infrastructure, these powerlines are often surrounded by an invisible no-grow zone. Anything that could fall on or disrupt the cables is removed. This might seem catastrophic for wildlife, but these spaces are effectively woodland rides. I could see that some of the trees had even been coppiced. Open spaces in woods can be great for insects and reptiles if managed correctly (The Wildlife Trusts, n.d.). When dominating oaks are removed from woodland, it gives an opportunity for the smaller trees to make a break for sunlight. Along the edge of this long, straight ride were Holly and Rowan, with a bit of Bramble thrown in for good measure. These all produce berries, perfect this time of year for thrushes.

Thrushes! That’s what I could hear! Getting my eyes in, I could just about see the speckled chests of some kind of thrush. Foolishly, I had left my binoculars at home, which meant I would have to get really lucky if I could visually ID these birds to species level. But I wasn’t here to see birds, I was here to listen to them.

Using a parabolic dish is not as simple as it seems. If you can see the object that you would like to sample then you just point it towards said object. That part is easy enough. But the majority of the time, the little rascal is hidden. This requires a bit more technique. Here you try to listen out for where you think the bird is, (which is hard enough with robust headphones on your head), before pointing the disk roughly in the correct direction. Now, you sweep from left to right and back again, trying to find where the sound is the loudest. If you find the sweet spot on the X axis, now try again going up and down on the Y axis. Now, remember that this bird is definitely moving, and probably is not calling all of the time. You can see why this is a recipe for much confusion.

This is the situation I found myself in repeatedly when trying to record the thrushes. Confused. As a collective, they were babbling like the best brook. But individually, each bird was only whispering gently. This is a problem when your microphone is highly directional, and prefers to only record one, maybe two birds at a time. Soon, the flock of thrushes moved on, and I did too.

Many people would assume that woodlands in the winter are drab and grey. Maybe, if you are lucky, the decaying leaves amongst the mud would create a displeasing brown mush, hardly a poetic mix. But here at Ebernoe, that couldn’t be further from the truth. The trees were caked in green mosses. Sometimes, these bryophytes would clump together like a damp sponge. Other times, the mosses were long and hairy. Either way, the results where the same – undeniable, brilliant green. I’m sure that the red berries on the Rowan trees are also stunning, but alas I am red-green colourblind.

I found a fallen log to sit on, forgetting that mosses aren’t like wet sponges, they are wet sponges. Having made the mistake, and deciding to live with it, I settled down, hoping the birds would come to me. It wasn’t long before the wood became alive. Somehow, I had plonked myself in the middle of where the thrushes decided to fly next. Again, I scanned the trees with my dish, and again I struggled to pick up one strong source. I was pushing my microphone to the max, creating an uncomfortable hissing, beeping sound. It was a bit like putting your ear next to a broken synthesiser. Surely nothing I was picking up was useable.

There was one strong sound, however. Scuttling along the ground and talking to itself was a tiny voice box with wings. Wrens, despite their lowly stature, are remarkably loud. This one, either ignorant of my presence, or too foolish to care, was slowly making its way towards me. Ditching the thrushes, I honed in on the wren’s mutterings. “This is brilliant”, I thought to myself whilst trying not to breathe.

I did have at least some consolation when sitting on that slightly slimy log. I had been running Merlin on my phone, an app which listens to birds, and makes its best guess for what is around. It is a bit of a cheaty way of doing birding, and the ID it gives isn’t always correct, (Dad can trick it with his tawny owl impression), but I was on my last leg. Merlin said Redwing, and listening to some recordings, I tend to agree.

Wandering through the woods wasn’t as peaceful as I had hoped. Unfortunately, Ebernoe Common is underneath the Gatwick flightpath. Even an hour away from my hometown of Crawley, I couldn’t escape the constant drone of planes. I did also come across a couple of dogs out for a walk. I am sure that they are all very good dogs, especially the one-eyed scraggly ball of hair that tried to make conversation with my parabolic dish, but they do cause a bit of havoc when I’m trying to record birds. I also came across a strange mechanical growling sound. Perhaps one of those monsters I had read about when I was a kid? No, it was a lawnmower, (who mows their lawn when it’s frosty?). Despite these mild setbacks, for the most part the day was peaceful. Except for the international flights overhead, but I am used to that. 

After lunch, (spent sat on another moss smothered log, under the keen eye of a red kite), I slowly made my way back to the van. This is when I came face to face with another flock of birds. Not redwings, but a clan of long tailed tits, with a handful of Blue tits thrown in for good measure. Long tailed tits are sometimes affectionately referred to as lollipops. I think that this is a little bit misleading as they prefer to not be licked, but the sentiment is fair enough. Their tails are longer than the rest of their body, which both makes them easy to identify and very cute. This particular gang of tits had seemingly decided that my parabolic microphone and I weren’t very threatening, and decided to hang around for long enough for me to get some good recordings. What a nice way to end my little adventure.
 

References
The Wildlife Trusts. (n.d.). How to manage a woodland for wildlife. Retrieved from The Wildlife Trusts: https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/how-manage-woodland-wildlife